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Striking DUT staff 'remain resolute' on 10% salary increase

Durban – Striking Durban University of Technology (DUT) staff say they cannot be "bullied" into accepting a salary increase which their management "feels they should have".

"So, that's why you see staff remain resolute and united," said Milton Estrice, spokesperson for the crisis committee of the three unions which have been on strike since Monday, January 15.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), National Health Education and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and Tertiary Education National Union of SA (Tenusa), downed tools after failed wage negotiations.

Estrice told reporters on Thursday that they decided to down tools after the university's management "came with a fixed position of 4%" when negotiations began in September 2017.

Workers are demanding a 10% salary increase.

"After several meetings, they started moving by half a percent at a time. We asked them at the last meeting: 'Do you have a committee that's mandated to resolve this impasse or to sort out the salary negotiations?' Management's response was: 'We have a team with a limited mandate'," said Estrice.

He said to date, they haven't met a management team that was "committed" to resolve the impasse.

He said labour was willing to negotiate further with management.

"We want 10%, they are currently willing to give us 5.5%, we can meet each other halfway," he said.

He said after several attempts to resolve the salary issue with management failed "we took a vote of no confidence" against the university's vice-chancellor, Professor Thandwa Mthembu.

"We took a vote of no confidence against him because he stays aloof during the whole process. We've never ever engaged with him. Up until now he has never spoken to the leadership of the unions, neither to the crisis committee that's managing this whole impasse," claimed Estrice.

DUT council chairperson Wiseman Madinane said the unions must negotiate in "good faith".

"All I'm asking is that trade unions must come back to the table in good faith. The only way in our view that that can be done, and that is the condition of our revised mandate, is that that should happen under mediation provided by skilled professionals in the field of mediation," he said.

Madinane said he found it challenging that the original opening demand of 10% by the unions had not changed since the start of the negotiations.

He said management was willing to offer the workers an increase of 5.75%.

On the issue of the vote of no confidence against Mthembu, Madinane said the council declared him fit for the position in November last year after reviewing his performance.

"He cannot be unfit in January, it just does not make sense," he said.

Mthembu joined DUT in October 2016.

"We did a 360 degrees review towards the end of the year 2017. We interviewed the direct reports of the vice-chancellor - all the people who report to him, students in the form of the SRC, unions, past students of the institution and some members of the council, and that review overwhelmingly said Mthembu was fit for purpose. He is the right man for the job. He is on the right path and council accepted and approved that review," Madinane said.

While Madinane and Mthembu were busy at a press conference held in Mthembu's office block, staff protested outside under a watchful eye of Mi-7 security guards.

They sang and danced in front of the offices and some even burned incense in front of the main entrance to Mthembu's office, where a group of stern-faced security personnel kept guard.

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